Oliang
โอเลี้ยงoh-LIANG
A tall glass of very sweet, very cold black coffee with a toasty, nutty, almost cereal edge from the roasted grains blended into it. It is the black cousin of Thai iced coffee, and Bangkok drinks it straight from a plastic bag with a straw.
At a glance
- Powder : water
- 1:8
- Active time
- 3 min
- Total time
- 13 min
- Makes
- 3 glasses
- Serve
- Over ice
- Kit
- Cloth sock + pan
Ingredients
Note: Without oliang powder, mix 50 g dark roast coffee with 10 g toasted, ground brown rice or barley. It is not the same, but it is in the family.
Method
-
Steep the powder
Put the oliang powder in the cloth sock over a pot or heatproof jug. Pour the boiling water through and leave the sock to steep for five minutes, dunking it every so often.
Steep 5 minutes -
Pour it through twice
Lift the sock, let it drain, then pour the coffee back through the sock once more. It extracts a little more and catches any fine grain particles.
-
Sweeten it hot
Stir in the sugar while the coffee is still hot, until it dissolves completely.
Oliang is meant to be served syrupy sweet over ice, and the sugar will not dissolve once it is cold.
-
Cool and pour over ice
Let it cool for a few minutes, then pour over glasses of crushed ice. It keeps in the fridge for three days, so many people make it by the litre.
Why this works
Oliang powder is not pure coffee. Traditional blends combine roasted coffee with roasted corn, soybeans, sesame seeds and sometimes rice or cardamom. The grains were originally an extender, a way of stretching expensive coffee further, and they stayed because they suit the drink. Roasted grains bring their own Maillard flavours, toasty, nutty and cereal-like, and they add body from their starch without adding the bitterness more coffee would.
The cloth sock, the tung tom in Thai, suits this blend better than paper. It lets through more oils and fine particles, giving body, and its loose weave does not clog with the starchy grain powder the way a paper filter does.
The sugar level is high for a reason. Ice dulls sweetness, and a drink served over a full glass of crushed ice loses a third or more of its perceived sugar as it chills and dilutes. Oliang that tastes almost too sweet hot tastes right cold. Sweetening while hot is the only way to dissolve that much sugar.
The name comes from Teochew, a Chinese language spoken by many of Bangkok's Chinese-Thai families, who ran the old coffee shops: o means black and liang means cold. The milk version, with condensed and evaporated milk, is what most of the world calls Thai iced coffee. Thais call that oliang with milk, or kafae yen, and the black version came first.
Variations
- Kafae yen: oliang with condensed milk and a float of evaporated milk, which is Thai iced coffee.
- Oliang kosong: unsweetened, rare on the street but good.
- Oliang with cardamom: some blends include it. Add a crushed pod to the sock.
- Oliang float: a scoop of coconut ice cream in the glass.
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Questions
What is oliang?
Thai iced black coffee made from a blend of coffee with roasted grains such as corn, soybean and sesame, brewed in a cloth sock, sweetened and served over ice.
What is the difference between oliang and Thai iced coffee?
Milk. Oliang is black and sweet. Thai iced coffee, kafae yen, is the same coffee with condensed and evaporated milk.
Why is there corn in Thai coffee?
Roasted grains were originally used to stretch coffee further. They stayed because they add a toasty, nutty flavour and body without extra bitterness.
Can I make oliang with normal coffee?
A strong dark roast brewed and sweetened the same way makes a good black iced coffee. It will lack the cereal note. Mixing in some roasted brown rice powder gets closer.